Filed to story: Falling for My Ex's Mafia Dad Novel Free PDF (Fay Alden & Kent Lippert)
He laughs, smiling at me genuinely. “Do I make you nervous?” he asks, blunt.
I laugh, unable to help it. “Has no one bothered to tell you, in all these years, that you’re a little terrifying, Don Bianci?”
He grins and shakes his head at me. “Well, considering what you accomplished, young lady, l’d say you should consider yourself formidable enough to stand up to the best.”
“Standing up I can do,” I say with a little sigh. “Small talk?”
He nods gently. “Shall we cut to the chase then?”
My face falls a little and I step closer, suddenly anxious. “
There’s a chase?”
“I wondered,” he murmurs quietly. “If you wanted to know what…happened. With your mother.”
I go a little pale as I stare at him. Because, on one hand, what the hell is he doing bringing this up at my son’s baptism!?
But then again…this is a mafia family. This sort of thing probably happens at baptisms all the time. Maybe this is what baptisms are really for.
I refocus my scattered thoughts on the powerful man before me, considering what it is, really, that I want.
My mother. Of course I’ve thought of her over the past few months, cried over her, felt horribly guilty and terribly justified all at once. Considered thoroughly that she was the one who set up the dominos which lead to her fate I was just the one who toppled them backwards, in the way she wasn’t expecting. But still, as I stared down at my little baby who I love so incredibly much, just as she must have stared at me…
I just can’t imagine a world, any world, in which Dominic would turn on me in the same way.
But…l mean, I did it to both my parents.
My guilt is very real. But so is my dedication to my real family not those tied to me by blood (except Dominic, of course), but those who fought to be at my side
“Is she ever coming back into my life, Don Bianci?” I ask quietly, knowing that the real question lurks beneath my words. “Will she ever be able to hurt me again?”
His mouth twists up into a heartless smile. “No, Fay,” he replies, his voice soft. “She’s not coming back.”
“Then no,” I say, raising my chin and staring him directly in the eye. “I’ve made my peace with that woman. I don’t want to know anything more.”
He nods then, and I know that it is done.
“Everything all right over here?” I turn to see Daniel and Jerome approaching, coming to my rescue, Dominic in the crook of Daniel’s arm. “I stole him back from Janeen,” Daniel murmurs to me. “He was getting in the way of her Vogue photoshoot.”
“Everything is perfect, Bianci says, smiling first at Daniel and then at me as I take Dominic back into my arms, glad to feel him again against my chest. “Congratulations, again, Fay. Though, he c***s his head now, “I was surprised to not be asked to be godfather. It is rather a first
I believe that I am godfather to..” he looks around with interest, “pretty much everyone else here, under the age of fifty.”
“Yes well,” I say, smiling at him, “I thought Daniel deserved a turn.”
Bianci nods to me and laughs. “Still, I will consider Domenico a special case,” he murmurs, running a hand over my son’s little bonnet. “He can come to me anytime in his life if he ever needs a…favor.”
I nod deeply to Bianci, acknowledging the significant boon he has extended to my son. He nods back and then begins to walk back to Nonna’s side as they head for the chapel.
“We’re never going to him for anything, are we little baby!?” I say to Dominic in a light, overly cheerful voice, grinning at him. “Too many strings attached to the mafia world!”
“That’s right, son,” Daniel seriously to Dominic, continuing his long-dead joke that this is his baby, at least on paper. ” You come to me for all your mafia needs.”
“Your big brother will help you with your screenplay, Dominic,” Jerome says, laughing and leaning forward to stroke a finger across Dominic’s cheek, “not killing your enemies. Know where your family’s strengths lay, little guy.”
“Hey!” Daniel protests, laughing, “I think that over the past year I have proved…
But suddenly his words fade out as his attention is snagged by a figure leaning against the stone wall that rings the chapel, his hands in his pockets as he watches us.
A very distinctive, very blonde figure.
“What the…” Daniel breathes, “why the hell is he here!?”
“Well, isn’t it obvious, Daniel?” I say, frowning and starting off towards the figure by the wall. “He’s here because I invited him.”
“Hey, gorgeous,” Ivan says, his mouth turned up in a smirk as I cross the churchyard, beaming at him.
“Look who’s talking,” I say, laughing and reaching for him when I come close enough. Ivan wraps me in a hug, dropping a kiss to my cheek as I hold Dominic a bit to the side so he doesn’t get squished between us.
“Let me see,” he says, still grinning as I bring Dominic back around and turn him so that Ivan can peer down into his face. Ivan nods appreciatively, running a fond hand over Dominic’s little baby head. “He’s a good-looking kid, Fay,” Ivan says, turning his grey eyes back to mine, a true smile on his lips. “But then again, with you as a mom…”
I laugh, shaking my head at him. “You shouldn’t hit on me, Ivan. I’m a married woman now -“
“Oh please,” he says, grinning. “Like that stopped me before.” I laugh as he raises his chin towards the baby.” What’d you name him?”
“After his father,” I murmur fondly.
“I thought you already had a Lil Kent,” Ivan says, laughing as his eyes find Titus still running around the yard, greeting all the guests.
“I know,” I say quietly, looking seriously up at him now.”
That’s why we named him Ivan.”
Ivan’s face drops, his skin going ghostly pale.
I howl with laughter, my head tilting back on my neck, almost losing my footing as laugh so hard my stomach, aches.
“Don’t do that to me, Fay!” Ivan shouts, bursting into laughter himself.
“His name is Dominic!” I say, shaking my head and wiping a tear away from my eyes. “And seriously, Ivan, how did you think that would have even happened we never did more than kiss!”
“Well, I don’t know,” he sighs, exasperated and a little embarrassed to be caught off guard like that, sitting down on the stone wall for a little support. “You try being a guy in his twenties we live in fear every day of showing up somewhere and someone telling us that a kid is ours!”
I sigh happily, sitting next to him on the stone wall. “I’m glad you came, Ivan. I mean, I want things to be sorted with us. But… also wanted you to meet the baby.”
“Things are fine with us, Fay,” Ivan says on a deep exhale, smiling at me. “I know that day was very dramatic but…’ve had some time to think now, and I’ve done my research your Fiona was very helpful with that by the way -“
I nod, because she called me, of course, and updated me on what Ivan asked her.
“And,” he shrugs, his mouth a little twisted. “I mean, it’s hard to find out your whole life was a lie and that everything you’ve been pursuing since you were a kid is the wrong road. But..life goes on.”